 Shawn M. Morgan |
Tungsten Film and Indoor Lighting I am planning on shooting some indoor portraits of my wife and I. I have no studio lighting equipment and no rooms with large windows for a natural light source so I planned on using indoor (incandescent) lighting and Kodak Portra-100T Tungsten Professional Color Print Film (ISO 100). I want to acheive natural color tones with indoor lighting, with out all the expensive studio lights and I wanted to know if I am on the right track to making photos that appear to be naturally lighted as in outdoor portraits??
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Dede Carver |
Shawn, I am sorry I am not able to answer your question. Just about 5 minutes ago I posted a similar question not knowing about yours first. I am only a beginner, but what I found out after just jumping into it feet first was that my pix were not exposed the way I wanted them to be. Figure out how to meter your camera (such as spot metering) and then jump around with the exposures. Don't take only one exposure of each pose, like I did and be disappointed. Forgive me if this stuff you already knew! Did you take the pix yet? I am interested in knowing how the film you used worked?
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Shawn M. Morgan |
I haven't got the film yet. It should be here today, and I will probably take some pictures sometime this week. I will let you know how they turn out. I have never used tungsten film before so it will be interesting to see what happens. I plan on shooting with daylight film too and comparing the two. Thanks Dede for your reply. Your suggestions will be helpful.
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Dede Carver |
I was wondering if you had a lighting plan? I am assuming you are just using regular lamps from around your house as you mentioned you didn't have pro lighting. I have only done one experiment in my basement taking pictures of my own kids with homemade backdrops. Not knowing anything about indoor lighting it was an experience. I had a tall lamp that can be angled different ways along with the overhead light on the ceiling. I was trying to keep a soft look so I also pointed the lamp toward the ceiling. To the viewers eye, it looked fine. No shadows or bright places. Some of the pics I took with the kids seated or laying on the floor came back with the bottom half of the pix darker. Obviously not enough even distrubution of light. Just something to think about anyway. If you are learning too, I would move the light around a bit and take note of the changes you made. I took mental notes and couldn't remember exactly after I got them back. Again, forgive me if these are things you are well aware of. They are things I simply wish I had known before I took so many roles of film. Kind of takes the wind out of your sails when you get your pix back and they stink! Have you played around with inside pix a lot? Maybe I should be asking you questions instead.
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Shawn M. Morgan |
I dont have a lighting plan yet. Your suggestions will be very useful. I have taken some indoor shots at weddings and during the holidays. I have always used daylight balanced film, and the results have been so-so. I thought I would try tungsten film for some indoor portraits to see how well that worked. I also thought about buying a blue filter and using daylight film and comparing the results. I would like to purchase some indoor lighting some day but thats kinda spendy. My indoor pix have always turn out pretty good, considering the equipment that I use, but I am in search of something a little bit better. Thanks for your help.
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Sandy J. Dorton |
this is not an answer but a question ...I went to our local photography specialty store and was told there was no such thing as tungsten negative film. where did find yours. Ive tried color reversal or the tungsten slide film.
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Shawn M. Morgan |
I bought my tungsten film online from B&H Photo in New York City. It was Kodak Portra ISO 100 Tungston Film. I order most of my film from them. They are highly recommended by me as I have never had any problems with them. The film cost me about $4 a roll. Check them out a www.bhphotovideo.com I was satisfied with my results but I am going to compare them to daylight balanced film and a blue filter. Will post results when completed.
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Christopher |
Did you use the tungston film yet? How did it work? I just started working at a company that makes/sells light boxes and am learning all about light and how it makes portraits look so perfect. I was told about Tungston lighting when I asked about purchasing some equipment from work. I love photography, but am learning lots of new areas of it, including portraiture.
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Shane Crook |
I was seriously shocked. My photography teacher suggested using tungsten film to eliminiate the yellow tinge of standard indoor lighting (since he likes a pure white). So I asked the camera shop and what they gave me was Kodak Ektachrome 160T (colour reversal film). That itself was $20 AUD. So I shot my photos fairly casually in the most brightly lit room in my house which is the bathroom with its heat lamps. I also brought in the desk lamp too and bracketed at about F2, 2.8 and 4 at a 60th of a second (fingers crossed). When I went to get it developed today, I found out they would only develop them as slides. To get them printed was more. For my assignment I need printed photos, so this will cost me $50 AUD ontop of the $20 AUD I spent on the film. IM SO ANNOYED!!!!
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Shane Crook |
http://www.adorama.com/KKP100T4550.html Thats the tungsten negative film you guys used right?? Whys it come in such a big package - do you have to roll the film on the cannisters themself? Can you get tungsten negative film prepackaged?
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Shawn M. Morgan |
Shane, Sorry to hear about your bad experience with your film. The film I used was Kodak Portra 100 ISO Tungsten Film. It cost about $4 per roll. Check out my 2/22/03 post near the top of this column. I buy most of my film from BHPhoto. My lighting was poor and I ended up with to much blue in the picture. Thats the nature of Tungsten film. It adds blue hues because that is lacking in indoor light. I used my computer and Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 and balanced the colors (less blue) and the pictures turn out really well. I printed them out on my printer with Kodak Photopaper. The quality is as good as the originals but more balanced in color. Hope this helps!
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Steve A. Stephens |
Portra pro tungsten film is great stuff...I do believe it's C41 processing..so you can take it to any lab to print up...they have to make a small adjustment to the computer to run it thru a one hr..but it can be done...second...tungsten is the right temp for indoors filming...but here's a trick to do with yourn canon and flash...on the flash look for a power setting..adjust that to about 2/3 to 1 full stop lower...turn on your house lights and take the shot..the flash will shoot at a lower power setting and the camera will adjust the shutter and app. setting to allow for proper exposure..do this with regular portra 160 film.....it will make a more natural photo with the natural house lights and the flash to adjust for a fill.......normally what happens is the flash will try and over power the rest of the house lights to give a proper flash level...but this tech. tells the computer in the camera to let in more ambient light and use the flash as a fill.. trust me it works and after 15yrs I finally figured it out about 7 yrs ago!!..hahaha
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